Description:
openSUSE has continuously been outranked since 2009 by 3 GNOME-based
distributions on distrowatch.com. openSUSE has failed to re-capture its
spot as hot contender in 2010 by betting everything on the KDE-4-card.
The only way to re-gain popularity and some of the buzz of those early
years of SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop introduction seems to me to
strengthen the visibility of GNOME in openSUSE and preferably be at the
forefront of GNOME 3 adoption; a position that Ubuntu has foolishly
relinquished of its own accord.
The fabulous buildservice should make it quite easy to adopt bleeding-
edge GNOME 3 features quickly while at the same time offering a GNOME 2
interface akin to the still very popular SLED.
KDE 4 should of course continue to be supported...

Discussion:
#1: Jos Poortvliet (jospoortvliet) (2010-12-29 16:04:08)
Too bad GNOME 3.0 won't make it into openSUSE 11.4, which will have
KDE's 4.6 release as biggest user-visible change. For the 11.5/12.0
release we might be able to give this a push, however, to be on the
forefront we're too late by then. That is too bad, I know. But if GNOME
3 proves to be very popular it is worth a shot at that time to give it
more visibility.

#3: Christian Jäger (eet) (2010-12-29 21:23:50) (reply to #1)
Well, yes, this request really is a bit tongue-in-cheek. I think we
must keep a constant gauge on how many openSUSE users actually support
the unilateral KDE-centredness. Because, as a matter of fact, the move
to KDE as default desktop environment has proven spectacularly
unsuccessful in attracting new users and developers, a promise which
was used heavily to sweeten that bitter pill for openSUSE GNOMErs a
year or so back.
So, let us vote constantly in one or the other way on which desktop
environment we should keep up front. And when we finally have enough of
this constant in-fighting, we can hopefully return to the sanity of
olden days, having NO default desktop environment whatsoever, which is
the way it should be...

#2: Ramon Juan Canto Serra (deabru) (2010-12-29 17:09:43)
GNOME is a good desktop, as KDE is.
I think KDE gives us some diferenciation from other distros. And most
openSUSE users prefer it. No reason to change default desktop selection
for me.

#6: Nelson Marques (ketheriel) (2011-01-01 15:47:32)
My position regarding this issue is purely strategical, and hope people
can understand why such position is taken my side... As I see things:
1. openSUSE 11.4 will be the last and greatest GNOME2 distribution.
Let's focus on that. 2. openSUSE 11.3 provided a good GNOME2.32
software repository. The GNOME team hasn't failed in providing users
the required support and made outstanding efforts in fixing stuff and
working out an easy solution for users who wanted bleeding edge. This
seems the way that will happen on 11.4, we ship 2.32 by default (at the
peak of it's maturity and stability), which is also a more Universal
choice, since we're not cutting users down based on proprietary 3D
support which we can't really control in full extent. This sounds a
good option. 3. I don't see a valid reason for reducing GNOME3 as some
people are doing. openSUSE offers one of best, if not the best GNOME
implementations! Why is our marketing neglecting this? And
furthermore... Do you really think it's cool to make such statements
that might have a negative impact on GNOME contributors? Before
attacking GNOME, try to respect those people which like GNOME and that
are also members/users of the community... take 10 minutes of you time
and sprint 7 laps around your place while repeating to yourself:
"openSUSE isn't just KDE".
Though I don't really find offensive for openSUSE to provide different
positioning by being a 'KDE distro', I find very negative that it
generates way too much ranting between KDE and GNOME users. 3000 years
ago Sun Tzu wrote that in order to conquer, first we needed to split
the enemy... curiously, when our main strength should be in union, we
seem to be splitting ourselves in futile wars between KDE and GNOME...
I'm sure such attitudes only make only make us strong (see the
irony?).

+ #8: Toran Korshnah (torank) (2011-01-04 03:02:53)
+ There was a review comparing the major Linux distros. OpsenSuSE was
+ selected as the best KDE-distro. Ubuntu as the best GNOME-distro. Yast
+ was praised as well. Pesonally I use LXDE with my SuSE. The best is to
+ offer choice to the user, as every user is different. I prefer clean
+ code, in which BSD is so good. But if you ask me, a big feature request
+ would be the support for GPS-devices like TomTom, Mio etc... No, to me
+ clean code and hardware-support is essential.